Promises Kept
by insaneantics21
Summary: Quinn and Santana made a pact when they were 22.


**Other Pairings: **side Santana/Brittany and Quinn/Santana friendship

**Warnings:** Character death.

* * *

The pact. It was made while they were twenty-two and drunk and probably not in any position to make promises to anyone but it was made. It was made and it was the one thing about that night they never forgot. There had been talks to just forget about it, to break it, but the same conclusion was always reached. They wouldn't break it. They felt the same about the issue sober as they did drunk. And so it remained.

It wasn't a suicide pact. It wasn't.

When Quinn and Santana were seventeen they watched Santana's mother die. It wasn't quick and painless like a car accident or a gunshot wound. No. This was drawn out over months and months and her mother was being pumped full of morphine and God only knows what other drugs that kept her alive. Santana's dad, the doctor, kept trying new drugs, more drugs, everything to keep the love of his life with him a little longer. By the end, Mrs. Lopez looked absolutely nothing like what either girl had remembered. Her face was sunken in, her hair was gone, her skin was ashen and she was little more than a skeleton.

Brittany brought stuffed animals. Quinn prayed and her mother brought food every single day. Brittany understood what was going on but she didn't see it on the level that Quinn and Santana saw it. Santana would push her out the door when she had to help give her mother a bath or pump liquid through the feeding tube or empty the various bags of bodily fluids. Quinn insisted on being there. She helped Santana in every way she could and she saw it all. She held Santana when Mrs. Lopez took her last breath. After the body had been taken away, Quinn called Brittany and the two blondes didn't let Santana out of their touch for weeks. They had been best friends since they were in-utero and, even with all the drama, there was nothing they wouldn't do for each other.

Five years later, _exactly_ five years later, Quinn dragged Santana out of her and Brittany's apartment to the nearest liquor store and bought a bottle of whiskey. Santana sniped something about Rachel and the seemingly short leash that Quinn was kept on despite the fact that they'd only been dating for less than a year. Quinn threatened to withhold the alcohol. Santana shut up. For a while.

They found themselves in a park nearby Santana's apartment complex passing the bottle back and forth.

"I don't ever want to go like that," Santana mumbled. She took another swig of the almost-empty whiskey bottle and passed it to her friend. "I can't do it Q. I can't."

"Me _hic_ either. I lo-loved your mom, S…but I'm not puttin' my kids through that."

"You knock Smurfette up?"

"Shut up. She's _hic_ calmed down a lot. Sh-she's cool."

"Whatever."

There was silence as they finished off the bottle.

"I won't go like that," Santana repeated. "I'd rather fuckin' _hic_ kill myself. I could do it. I'll be a d-doctor. I could do it."

"You're drunk."

"So're you."

More silence ticked by until Quinn turned to look at her best friend. Santana was very clearly intoxicated, yes, but she was also serious. Very serious.

"I'll make you a deal," Quinn said, her voice sans any slur from the alcohol.

"Hm?"

"We don't want to go that way. So…I say that if we're ever, y'know, _there_ that if I can't pull the trigger then, damn it, you better."

"A suicide pact?"

"No! Just…if I'm not getting better and I can't do it then you do it for me. And I'll do the same for you."

Santana nodded slowly. "Okay."

"Deal?"

"Deal."

And so it was. A drunken packed between two best friends. One they would go over and over again and always ultimately decide that it stood. In the backs of their minds they knew it was a possibility. They knew it could happen. But on the forefront they acted invincible just like every other young person. Everything was going to be just fine.

It was until it wasn't.

When the diagnosis came it was devastating.

Stage two pancreatic cancer.

Quinn looked at Santana from across the Latina's desk. Rachel was holding her hand and Santana took off her glasses and shook her head.

"It's incurable, Q. There's nothing I can do."

Quinn nodded. It was a lie. There was something Santana could do. There was something Santana _would_ do. But Quinn knew not to say a word in front of Rachel. They sat in silence until Santana's phone rang and her receptionist reminded her she has another appointment.

Telling the kids was the hardest. They were old enough to get it, 15, 14, and 12, and Quinn was stoic as they cried into her shoulder and told her how much they loved her and always would. She remained stoic until they went to bed, until Rachel fell asleep with her arms wrapped possessively around Quinn's middle. Flashes of ashen skin and sunken cheeks went through her mind. A bottle of whiskey and a pact. And Quinn cried silently into her pillow wondering if this was punishment for that pact. A cruel joke by the universe. Rachel roused and held on tighter and cried with her wife.

"I can't do this to them, Rachel," Quinn whispered. "They can't see it. I won't let them."

Rachel cried harder.

It took three days for Santana to show up at Quinn's front door with a bottle of whiskey. They went back to that familiar park and they sat passing the bottle back and forth. It was only a quarter of the way gone before something was said.

"How long do I have?"

Santana shrugged. "A few months. Longer if you do chemo."

"I'm not doing it."

"I get it."

The bottle was half-empty the next time anything was said.

"You can do it, right S?"

"I could get fired, lose my medical license, and go to prison."

"Oh."

Santana didn't look at her when she took the next drink. "Just tell me when, Q."

Quinn didn't _feel_ any different. Not at first. As the weeks went on she felt a little more tired. She and Rachel took the kids to Hawaii for a week on their spring break just like they'd always wanted to do but could never find the time. It was amazing the time they could find now. The kids were always home immediately after school and Rachel spent as little time at her show as she possibly could.

Santana and Brittany brought food and stuffed animals and practically lived in the house. Right before they left, every single time, Quinn would grab Santana by the arm and pull her in close.

"You're sure?"

"Tell me when."

On the bad days, Quinn thought about it. She thought about it a lot. She would always set a time schedule that if the bad days didn't end in a week then it was time. She started to panic when she had six bad days in a row but on the seventh she woke up feeling good. She still called Santana. They didn't go to the park for their bottle of whiskey; they instead sat in Quinn's living room with bottles of water.

"Will it hurt?"

Santana shook her head. "I'll make sure you're asleep."

"It's close."

"I know."

"What if I decide not to?"

"Then I'll be here."

The bad days started getting worse and Santana prescribed IV morphine. Quinn started writing letters. She wrote letters to her three kids for them to open on graduation, the day they turned 21, they day they got married, and the day they had their first child. She wrote letters to Rachel for every first holiday or anniversary she would be spending alone and a few more just because. She and Rachel saw the lawyers and got everything squared away. And then Quinn brought up the pact.

"I won't let you go through that, Rachel."

"I'm your _wife_! I will go through Hell for you, Quinn! I don't understand why you would want to do that to me."

"I'm doing it for you! I'm doing it for you and the kids because I don't want them remembered the way that Santana remembers her mom. She wasn't…it wasn't _her_. You weren't _there_, Rachel! She was always happy and singing and cooking and I won't let our kids remember me as anything but their mother that could play with them and laugh and talk and do _anything_ but lay there and wish I could just die. I won't do it to them and I won't do it to you. I don't want you to remember me like that."

There was a moment of silence before Rachel took a shuddering breath.

"I can't imagine my life without you."

"I want you to be able to think about these moments. Not watching me wither away into nothing, understand?"

"I understand."

It was a Friday night. It was late in the kids' summer vacation and Quinn had thirteen consecutive horrible days. Santana had put in an IV to keep her hydrated after the first three. Quinn barely remembered most of the days. She mostly drifted in and out of her morphine induced haze and wondered when it was going to get better. When Santana showed up at her bedside, a small bag in hand, she knew it wasn't getting better.

"How did you…"

"Rachel called me."

"Is this it?" Quinn asked, her throat raspy and dry. Rachel was there right away with a class of water.

Santana nodded. "You probably won't have any more good days."

"What if they find out?"

"They won't. I'll give you a shot of morphine and a shot to make you go to sleep. The…the last one…it's untraceable. I'll take out your IV and the only ones that will ever know will be us."

"Wait until the kids go to bed."

With plenty of help from the others, Quinn got out of bed and went to the living room to sit with her best friends, her wife, and her kids for one last bowl of popcorn, one last soda, and one last watch of _Funny Girl_. She was tired, so tired, and she was in a lot of pain but she held on. She held on until the end of the credits rolled and Rachel announced that it was time for bed. Quinn kissed each of her kids' foreheads and hugged them a little tighter than usual.

"I love you," she whispered to each one.

"I love you, too, Mom," was the response from each one.

The four adults returned to the bedroom and waited. They waited an hour and Rachel checked on the kids a few times before Quinn beckoned her to the bed.

"Give us a minute?" she whispered. Brittany and Santana nodded.

"I love you," Quinn whispered. "I love you so much, Rachel."

"I love you, too. You're my everything, Quinn."

"I want you to be happy, okay? Whatever you do…just make sure you're happy. If it makes you happy then do it. Never hold back because of me."

"I promise."

Tears welled in Quinn's eyes. They spilled over from the pain, from the thought of never seeing Rachel again, from leaving her kids. Rachel leaned up and kissed her with everything she had. She wrapped her arms tight around Quinn's fragile frame and held on.

"It's time," Quinn gasped as she pulled away. "It's time, baby."

Rachel nodded. She called for Santana and helped Quinn lie down. The blonde stayed on her back; Rachel curled into her and wrapped an arm around her waist and held on tight. Quinn looked over at her best friend lining three syringes up on the nightstand. Brittany knelt by the bed and took Quinn's free hand to turn it over so Santana could get to the IV. She took Quinn's hand and the seconds ticked by. Santana took a few deep breaths and Quinn nodded.

Quinn's eyes only focused on Rachel when Santana carefully took her arm. Quinn focused on Rachel. Her love. Her everything. There had been bumps in the road but it was all smooth sailing now. The familiar feeling of heaviness from the morphine started to settle in and Rachel leaned in to kiss her.

"I love you, Quinn Fabray," Rachel whispered.

"And I love you, Rachel Berry."

There was silence as Quinn's eyes closed and the world around her went dark.

The pact. It ended when they were forty-two and Quinn was content with her life enough to leave it in the hands of her best friend. It ended with the push of a syringe and a kiss to the temple followed by the absence of a pulse. They didn't break it. And so it was.


End file.
